Today's remote controllers, also known as remotes, remote commanders or the like, are used to remotely control any manner of electronic devices, including television sets, cellular telephones, set-top boxes, etc. Remote controllers have become more complex, with processors suitable for supporting processing tasks; they routinely take more time to start up and shut down. They also must be more responsive to the user, providing more opportunities for interaction with the user via the user interface (display, keypad) of the remote controller.
As the capabilities of remote controllers have become more sophisticated, particularly as regards the bi-directional interaction between a user and the remote controller via a user interface, the attendant power consumption and drain on power batteries present a real issue. The power required to maintain a fully operational mode, as well as the time to power-up and power-down from a sleep or hibernate mode, provide an incentive to intelligently determine the timing of entry into and exit from energy saving power consumption modes of the remote controller.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.